The creation of video documentaries highlighting sometimes a decades worth or more of research and investigation have been having an enormous impact on people all over the globe. A large amount of these professionally produced and meticulously researched documentaries are made freely available for reproduction by their creators. Duplicating them for mere pennies each gives you the "info warrior" access to an incredibly powerful tool in this fight against the ignorance and informational slavery that has encroached on our lives.

The information war is being fought in living rooms and movie theaters all across the world. By handing out these DVD's you can arm your family, friends and neighbors with the vital information that they need to fight this information war. Read the information below to learn how to duplicate DVD documentaries.

Get a DVD Burner

First you need a DVD burner, if you already have one then skip this section. It needs to be able to burn the DVD-R or the DVD+R formats. Most burners burn those 2 formats as well as several others such as DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-R (DL) and DVD+R (DL). DL or Duel Layer burners are not required, you'll get by just fine without this format. Our recommended format is DVD-R because most DVD players support this type. Once you have a working DVD burner installed in your computer your ready to move on.

Learn the Formats

There are many different DVD discs and formats, the ones we'll be focusing on are: DVD-R, DVD+R, Duel and Double Layer, DVD 5 and DVD 9.

When you rent a movie DVD from your local movie rental place it is either a DVD 5 or a DVD 9. The difference is capacity. DVD 5's hold 4.7GB of data where as DVD 9's hold 8.5GB. Movies that are really long or have lots of extra features require the larger capacity DVD 9 discs. Blank DVD 9 discs that are sold in stores are usually called Duel Layer or Double Layer Discs. The DVD-R and DVD+R formats are basically just competing writing formats, not all home DVD players will be able to play both. Older DVD players may not support burned discs that you made at home. Most newer DVD players bought in the last 3 years or so will support DVD-R, DVD+R or both. However it is our recommendation that you burn in the DVD-R format because it is our experience that more DVD players support this format.

The drawback to burning on blank DVD 9 discs is the price, they are about 10 times more than a DVD 5 disc. Blank DVD 9 discs cost about $3.00 each, compared to $.25 - $.50 for a blank DVD 5 disc. That is why it can be very cost effective to compress a DVD 9 movie down to a size that will fit onto a DVD 5 disc, which is exactly what we'll discuss in the next section!

Get the Software

Duplicating DVD's can be very complicated unless you have the right knowledge and the right software, and thankfully both are free! It would be criminal for me to bog this section down with mind-numbing details, so I am going to make this extremely easy.

First we need to determine if you are attempting to duplicate a large DVD 9 disc or a smaller DVD 5. So put the disc in the DVD drive on your computer and then under 'My Computer' right click on the DVD drive and click 'Explore'. If the disc size is over 4.7GB then it is a DVD 9 disc, if it is 4.7GB or under then it is a DVD 5 disc.

Now with that information in hand we can decide if we want to make an exact copy of the disc or compress it down from a DVD 9 size movie to fit onto a DVD 5 disc. Remember if your movie is already on a DVD 5 disc then you can make an exact copy. You can only make an exact copy of a DVD 9 movie if you burn it onto a DVD 9 disc. If you want to save money then you can compress it to fit onto a DVD 5 disc. Now go to the next appropriate sub-section.

Making an exact copy of a DVD 5 or DVD 9 disc

When making exact copies the best method is to extract the movie into one simple .ISO file. Then you can use your regular DVD burning software to burn the ISO onto a blank DVD and you'll have a 100% exact copy of the original. To extract the ISO from your DVD we use a free piece of software called:

DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0

Download it:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=DVD_Decrypter
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/
http://www.doom9.org/software.htm

Once you have it downloaded, install it on your computer. Now put the DVD to be copied in your computer's DVD drive and then run the DVD Decrypter program. All the default settings are fine, don't worry about that. Just hit the letter R on your keyboard, this is the shortcut key that will put the program into ISO mode. Now select your Source Drive, then your Destination Drive and hit the Decrypt button on the bottom. That's it! The movie on your DVD is being extracted to an .ISO file on your hard drive. To learn about burning ISO's continue on down to the Burn Baby Burn section.

Compressing a DVD 9 disc to a DVD 5 disc.

This can be complicated for most people, but luckily we found some very easy to use free software that makes it a snap! That software is called:

DVD Shrink 3.2

Download it:
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdshrink/
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_shrink.cfm
http://www.doom9.org/software.htm

Once it is downloaded, install it. Then put the DVD 9 disc into your computers DVD drive. Next run the DVD Shrink program. When the program opens click the 'Open Disc' button and point it to your DVD drive. Wait a couple of minutes for it to analyze the disc. After that make sure the button 'Full Disc' is selected at the top, and that the compression settings are on automatic in the right hand column. The default settings are just fine for our purposes. Now hit the 'Backup' button on the top. A dialog window pops up. Select backup target should be on ISO image file. Then determine where you want the .ISO file to be written by selecting the target location. Now hit OK and the compressing will begin.

[Depending on the copy protection scheme on the DVD, DVD Shrink may not be able to compress the movie, in which case you will get a copy protection error. To get around this use DVD Decrypter, hit the shortcut key F to get into the File mode. Then hit the decrypt button. after DVD Decrypter is done open up DVD Shrink and click 'Open Files' and point it to the extracted files. Now proceed normally with DVD shrink. Circumventing copy protection schemes may be against the law unless you are making a backup copy for yourself or have permission from the owner of the content.]

Burn Baby Burn

The reason we extracted the documentary into an ISO is because it is extremely easy to burn. Most DVD burning software is compatible with ISO's. You should of received some burning software when you purchased your DVD burner such as Nero Express 6, which is what we recommend. Open up Nero burning software or what ever software you use and choose to burn a disc image (ISO).

That's it, welcome to the wonderful world of DVD burning, any further questions can be asked in the Distributing Materials section in the forums.